Unless you’ve lived under a wonderful convenient Bell Rock for the past year or so, you’re probably aware that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been a hit. The latest entry in Nintendo’s Pampered Life sim series has already sold over 31 million units, challenging Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the honor of being Switch’s best-selling title.
So how will the future development of Nintendo’s game affect the success of the game? In an interview with Nikkei, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa explained that acceptance of the game’s long service life, thanks to its content and continuous updates, will have a “significant” impact on Nintendo’s future work.
Here are his full comments on the topic Animal Crossing that helps people stay home, with the Nintendo Everything translation:
“It’s true that our recent growth has stemmed from the need for people to stay home. Still [Japan’s] the state of emergency is over, people spend more time at home than before.
As long-lived games like Animal Crossing are accepted, we believe this will have a significant impact on future development. We want to offer games that can allow communication between friends and family. “
Of course, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has helped friends and families stay in touch in new and unique ways throughout the pandemic. The fact that Nintendo hopes to offer more games that can keep us interacting with each other is probably a good thing, especially since we know that the company intends to work on both basic series and new ideas in the future.
Maybe games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 could end up getting an optional online co-op as a result? Or maybe Nintendo will create completely new ways to keep in touch with a new IP? Only time will tell …